


Rites

by gooseberry



Series: waiting for your step [1]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Divine Monarchy, Durin Family Feels, Dwarves, Gen, Holy Festivals, Priestesses, Religion, Sacrifices, Temple Worship, kingship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-13
Updated: 2014-11-13
Packaged: 2018-02-24 08:22:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2574680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gooseberry/pseuds/gooseberry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Remember,” the priestess says, “that you are a servant of Mahal.”</i>
</p><p>  <i>When she strikes him, it is a blow heavy enough that he is staggered. He blinks the spots from his eyes, then straightens himself so that he can bow. When he glances up through his eyelashes, he can see that the priestess looks embarrassed and unsure. He wonders if, when she struck him, her hands had been shaking. He hadn’t been able to tell.</i></p><p>  <i>“I will,” Thorin says, and when the priestess holds out her hands, he takes them and, still bowing, kisses them.</i></p><p>---</p><p>This is for that “<a href="http://summa-awilum.tumblr.com/post/99741969970/whatbethsays-yes-but-consider-this-for-your">AUs for your OTP</a>" thing that made the rounds on Tumblr. It's for the "mutual friends always dragged to the same inane barbecues AU” one.</p><p>Also, it’s less inane barbecues and more holy festivals, because that’s how I roll. Shameless plucking of my preferred ANE temple rituals, because again, that’s how I roll. </p><p>In which Erebor never fell, a dragon was defeated, and Thorin eventually became king after Thror and Thrain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rites

“Remember,” the priestess says, “that you are a servant of Mahal.”

When she strikes him, it is a blow heavy enough that he is staggered. He blinks the spots from his eyes, then straightens himself so that he can bow. When he glances up through his eyelashes, he can see that the priestess looks embarrassed and unsure. He wonders if, when she struck him, her hands had been shaking. He hadn’t been able to tell.

“I will,” Thorin says, and when the priestess holds out her hands, he takes them and, still bowing, kisses them.

(They are shaking.)

The proper sacrifices are made on the highest altar, and Thorin stands in the place of the king, his family standing behind him. The temple compound, tucked in the highest peak of Erebor, is hot and crowded with the fire of the altar and press of bodies, everyone in their finest clothes. If Thorin looks to his right, he can see the wide steps that lead down into the city of Erebor. The steps are as crowded as the compound, with dwarves wherever there is room, and even in places where there is not. Some of the younger--and poorer--dwarves are perched on the mountain walls, clinging to the rock as they strain to see into the compound.

Thorin walked up those steps an hour before, the finish to the yearly circuit of Erebor; the beginning of the new year, the entreaty for Mahal to bless the mountain. The promise--yearly made and remade, a covenant sealed with a strike and then a kiss--of proper kingship.

Another sacrifice is offered--this one a grain offering--and Thorin shifts on his feet. His cheek is aching and his robes are heavy; he is tired. It has been a long day, at the end of a long week, and he is ready for holy week to end. And sacrifices: animal, grain, wine, and oil. The smoke is thick and sweet, the incense braziers smoking as fiercely as the high altar.

All the offerings are from the royal family, the worldly representations of his duties to Mahal and to Erebor. When the last of the offerings have been made, the priestess steps forward from her place, holding out her hands. Thorin steps forward from his as well, and when he has taken her hands, the priestess leans forward to kiss him in the eyes of all of Erebor. 

Then, still holding his hand, she leads him into the temple. Before the doors shut, Thorin can hear the shouting and cheering of the people, the dull roar of the altar fire and the echoed laughter of distant merrymakers.

He wonders when it will begin to snow.

x

The feast lasts for the whole of the first night, a raucous celebration even louder and more crowded than the first sacrifices at the temple. Thorin knows that all the streets of Erebor will be lit throughout the night, men and women and children eating and drinking and singing and dancing. There must be games out there, on every street corner--children chasing each other, men and women teasing each other, lovers plying each other with sweet wine and touches.

There will, if they are lucky, be many babies born at the close of this year. 

“Will there be a child?” Dori asks when Thorin sinks into his chair. Thorin shrugs, then takes a cup so that he can raise it to Dori.

“May we be so blessed,” he says and watches as Dori fights a smile. When Dori has lifted a cup in return, Thorin drinks from his own, the heavy taste of unwatered wine cut with honey. It is a night of decadence.

Power is collected here: the royal family and the priestly families, all of Thorin’s closest kin. There are neither priests nor priestesses--there are rituals that will take all of the first night--but their children are here, the young, beautiful dwarves who will be given to other kingdoms, dedicated other temples. 

Dori is here. Handsome, sharp, bitter Dori, born during Thror’s reign; the blessed son of Erebor’s last priestess. 

Thorin is a king, and Dori is an ornament: a promise of a bountiful year, a loving deity, a glorious future.

Dori is a beautiful, bitter soul, one of the handful of children born in the highest temple, promised to nothing at all because they are a promise in and of themselves. Untouchable in all the mostly glorious ways.

Thorin is setting his cup on the table when Dori nods at him, lifting his eyebrows as he says, “It looks like it will bruise this year.”  
Thorin gingerly touches his cheek with his fingertips; he can feel heat rising from where the priestess struck him, and his cheek is sore and tender to the touch. The bruise, he is certain, will go as deep as the bone.

“She’s new to her office,” is what he says. “It was not her choice to come to Erebor.”

Dori grimaces at that, turning away and saying something so low that not even Thorin can hear him. Perhaps it is a curse. It is most likely a curse. In another world, Dori’s words would mean nothing, but here there is potency in his words. Here, Dori is the child of a king and a priestess, a symbol filled with meaning but devoid of place. Here, Dori is a frightening thing.

“I have heard,” Thorin says, “that it will snow tonight.” He lifts up his cup, beckoning for a servant to come and fill it anew.

“Snow on the first night is a good sign,” is what Dori says in a most grudging voice. When the servant fills Dori’s cup, it is with averted eyes and an empty space between their bodies. Thorin eyes the empty space, wonders if Dori’s bitterness would poison one in both body and soul.

When he offers Dori a plate of rich meats, Dori takes it silently. They are careful, the both of them, and their fingers do not touch.

(When they’d been young, when Thorin had been fearless and Dori had been less angry, they had touched--their knuckles would knock together while passing dishes, or Thorin would kick Dori when crowded in the temple compound on feast days. And once, when they had been younger and brighter and infinitely more loving, Thorin had asked Dori, “May I kiss you?”)

They keep an empty space between the both of them, in body and in word. Thorin offers his most politic words, each carefully weighed and tested on the back of his tongue before he speaks it. Dori makes dark, disgusted faces, and when he speaks, it is is lowly, darkly. It is a bitter space between them, newly made when Thrain died and Thorin took his place as king--since the holy week when Thorin was the one led into the highest temple. The next blessed child will be of Thorin’s reign, and it will be as gloriously untouchable as Dori.

When hours have passed and the night is close to ending, Dori asks, “And will you marry this year?”

The wine, honey-thick and cloying, has left as sour taste in Thorin’s mouth. Thorin drinks again, because he has never learned how to turn away and leave pointless battles. His eyes are hot and dry, and he is exhausted. His face, he knows, is bruised, and he thinks that his soul must be just as bruised. For children meant to be blessed, he thinks that they are a particular type of miserable.

“Perhaps,” he says, and looks out toward the gateway. All of Erebor glitters, decadence and joy and dwarves drunk on wine and life. Thorin thinks he has never been so jealous.

“May we be so blessed,” Dori says, in his low, bitter voice, and he raises his cup to Thorin.


End file.
